PHOTO: Photo: RNZ
The estimated construction cost for a new hut along the Milford Track in Fiordland has nearly doubled to more than $3 million since work started on the initial design.
The 40-bed Mintaro Hut will replace the existing one which sits in a potential rockfall zone.
The work was was initially expected to be finished for last summer’s walking season.
The hut is nestled amongst the trees almost hidden from view and so far, the framing is up and there is a deck but no walls or roof yet.
Builder John Henderson said: “We’ve sort of seen a bit of progress now at last. It’s taken a long time to get out of the ground. It’s been a very wet spring, had lots of rain. We pulled out one Sunday and by the following Thursday there’d been a metre of rain on site so probably just as well we weren’t here”.
His crew of usually seven or eight started work pre-Covid-19, but they were locked out and then winter took hold.
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